


Kitchen Nightmares

by Ambrose



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrose/pseuds/Ambrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for the prompt: "Benvolio having to fix his friends’ attempts at baking a birthday cake for him." (cross-posting from tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitchen Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ICryYouMercy (TrafalgarsLaw)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrafalgarsLaw/gifts).



It had been, of course, a crappy day. It was the same every past year, and there was no reason this one would be any different. Except some part of him had hoped it would. He’d gotten a new apartment with his friends a few months back, and that had felt like a new chapter of his life.

But today wasn’t one of the good days. First off, his alarm didn’t ring, and he had been late for the meal with his parents, having no time to iron his shirt or do anything with his hair, and he could see the disapproving look in his parents’ eyes. Because, of course, like every year, they had insisted that he had lunch with them to celebrate his birthday, and, well, there was a reason he was always hanging out with his cousin, and practically moved in with his aunt and uncle so many years ago. After an excruciating meal, all he wanted from this day was to be left alone, maybe watch a movie, eat some pasta, get a warm mug of cocoa, and fall asleep. Some quiet would be nice.

He realised as soon as he stepped in the hallway of the apartment he shared with Romeo and Mercutio that he wouldn’t have such luck. The air smelled of burnt food, and his friends were buzzing around the kitchen trying to clean up their mess, probably to erase all traces of it before he would come home to the disaster. Neither of them had noticed him, so he stood in the entrance to the kitchen, watching Romeo trying to sponge off the foam from the fire extinguisher that was everywhere on the induction plate, in the oven and on the floor. Mercutio kept turning around on himself, looking for a place to set down the charred cake in its tin. The sink was crowded in pans and dishes and there was food everywhere on the counter – probably what he’d put in the cake, and for a moment Benvolio thought that maybe, just maybe, it was better that they almost burned the place down if it meant they wouldn’t have to eat that cake. But eh, they’d tried, and that thought alone made him smile. Yeah, he hated his birthday, and yeah they knew it, and they also all knew how terrible they were at cooking, but he had friends who loved him and had tried to make the day better by cooking him a… he looked again at the counter  - were those really zucchini peels? And those were traces of melted chocolate in that bowl? Where did they find such a weird recipe? Or maybe they’d just taken everything edible out of the fridge and mixed them up. Either way, the cake in Mercutio’s hands was way beyond recovery. How did they manage to get it so burned that it literally caught fire was beyond Benvolio’s understanding.

Benvolio’s mind was trying not to panic at the thought of what could have happened. They were alright. Okay, maybe they’d have to throw the tin away, but that was all, and neither his cousin nor Mercutio were hurt. There would be cleaning to do, of course, but not for him: they were usually banned from the kitchen, and they had an agreement that if they went and tried to cook anyway, they would handle the consequences themselves. That, so far, had been two barely avoided fires, a case of pasta forgotten for so long in the pan that they turned to mush and burned, and that one time Mercutio had almost cut off his finger (he kept telling him it was just a scratch, but Benvolio was no dupe and he could see it hurt more than he’d ever admit). Benvolio had almost resigned himself to the idea that he’d walk back from work one day to find the house burned to the ground.

Mercutio finally noticed him, and looked panicked too for a second, before he put on his brightest smile and ran towards him, yelling “Happy birthday!”. Of course, trying not to shove the hot baking pan at Benvolio but still wanting to hug him, Mercutio shoved to the side his arm that was holding the pan, inadvertently knocking over the open bottle of oil on the counter, which started pouring all over, slowly crawling its way towards the bags of flour and sugar, and dripping on the floor.

“Shit, shit, shit, sorry,” he said as he let go of Benvolio to get the bottle upright again and pushing the bags to relative safety with one hand, still holding to the tin in the other.

“Alright, how about,” Benvolio started with a smile, opening the window, “you leave that thing you call a cake on the sill. It stinks.”

“I don’t call it a cake, I call it a disaster.” He pouted. “And you’re early! That was supposed to be a surprise.”

“What, the burnt-down remains of our flat?”

“Nooooo, the cake!” Mercutio dramatically pretended to be hurt. “ You could at least have given us time to buy one from the bakery and pretend we’d made it. Now we don’t have anything!”

Benvolio smiled and his discomfited look, then sighed. “Come on, I’ll give a hand. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“You can show us how to make one after?” Romeo piped in.

Benvolio frowned for a moment, failing to see how that’d be a good idea, encouraging them to make food when he wasn’t around to supervise them. (He thought for a second how they would starve if he wasn’t around, and that made him smile somehow. He actually liked taking care of them, making sure they had edible food on their plates. But teaching them how to make a cake wouldn’t change that, would it.)

“So we don’t mess up next year,” Mercutio added, and Benvolio gave up all resistance when they both made puppy eyes at him.

Between them three, it didn’t take all that long to clean everything up (as much they could; the counter still felt slightly oily, but that would have to do for the time being since all the cleaning products were used up) and as they set off to bake that second attempt at cake together – a simple chocolate cake, not the fancy whatever that Mercutio had picked before – Benvolio realised how cooking soothed him, and his friends’ presence soothed him. Part of his mind wondered if it had been all a ploy from his friends to have him relax and feel good on his birthday for once, but he pushed the thought away. No matter. And there would be cake to eat among friends that evening, and a movie and laughter. Perhaps they could set a precedent for actually good birthdays.

Benvolio couldn’t repress a laugh when he noticed the implications, and when Mercutio asked him why, he just replied, “I like this, I wouldn’t mind doing something like that next year. But let’s just not make the part where you burn down the kitchen a tradition.”


End file.
